Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
27/11/09
We're on the move again, heading to Krabi to see what's about. We had to catch a bus to Takua Pa again and change buses to Krabi. We bought our ticket to Krabi and had something to eat while we waited. After a while the woman who sold us the ticket said that the bus was gonna be late but we couls catch a smaller bus (like PMT but not as we know it!) to another station and then get a coach from there to Krabi. We decided to do it so we didn't have to hang around any longer so we hopped onto the 'bone shaker' and off we went! We travelled about 2hrs before we got to the station, it was old and I didn't really even want to sit down in the 'cafe' let alone eat anything! We waited for about an hour and then our coach arrived. It was full (typical) so we had to sit underneath on mats, something else I've never done before but as we were sitting in the luggage compartment at least we could keep an eye on our bags ha ha! It was about 1.5hrs till we reached Krabi and I was glad to get off the coach. We got a taxi to a street where there were a few hotels and then we set off to find the right price. Got a room at 'Cha Guest House' for 300B (approx £5.50), not great but not really bad either. Had a look around town, went to the night market for a banana pancake (I'd score it 3/5!), got some dinner and thought about what we could do while we were here. We'd been given some leaflets and one was for a '4 islands tour' around Poda island, Chicken island, Tup island and Phranang cave. We thought this might be good so we booked it for the next day.
28/11/09
Early start, got picked up by a large pickup truck with benches down either side facing each other and another bench running down the middle, we didn't think for one minute that the driver would actually try and fill his truck to maximum capacity, WRONG!! What we thought was going to be a small trip on a small boat was way off, there were 20 people in the truck when we got to our destination and loads more people waiting for boats on the shore! We borded a longtail along with about 25 other people and headed off to Poda island. We got there in around 20mins and all herded onto the island. We were told we had an hour before we were off to the next island. With no time to waste everyone either got their cameras out or ran into the sea! We walked around the island a bit and went for a swim. It was really beautiful, the sea was crystal clear and really warm, bright coloured fish swam around us, it was a proper desert island. The only thing that ruined it was the sheer volume of people on the island at the same time! We had time for a quick swim and a dry off before we got back on the boat and headed to Chicken island. (This island has a rock formation that is supposed to look like a chicken but I didn't see it, it looked more like a deformed turkey to me!) At this stop we couldn't actually go onto the shore because of the rocks but we were given snorkels and masks and told to jump of the boat. We had 40mins. It was good and there was plenty of fish but my mask kept steaming up too quick and it was pissing me off so I got out after about 15mins. Sitting on the boat in the shade was much more appealing! After a Thai 40mins that was more like 30 actual mins off we went again, this time to Tup island where we were given lunch and told we would be on here for 2hrs. Lunch was rice (obviously!) a piece of chicken, veg and some weird but nice sauce. Once we'd had that we walked up a small hill to look at our surroundings. The islands were stunning, proper postcard type settings but all we could see were longtail boats and hundreds of people like ants crawling all over, it wasn't what we'd expected but I was still glad we went.
We had a long sit in the shade watching the sunburnt people all out in the midday sun then we had a little swim and it was time to head off to the last island. This island has a famous cave for the locals. Legend has it that an Indian Princess died at sea near here and her spirit is in the cave so the sailors and fishermen leave phallic (yes, phallic!) symbols so she will protect them at sea. We went to the cave and there was a shrine with loads of different sized willies made mainly out of wood sticking up out of the sand, quite bizarre! We were on the island long enough to swim out to another smaller island with massive cliffs and swim back again and it was time to leave. We got back to Ao Nang about 16:00ish and then had the truck ride back to Krabi.
- comments